Recycled Air
by Tragedy Tay
Summary: First, Marissa's head explodes. After that joyous occasion, it gets all depressing. Oh well. RL, SS.


Title: Recycled Air

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Rating: PG-13, for swearing, suicide, and of course, the sexy. Anything Ryan's in gets an automatic PG-13. Dude, The Sexy!

Summary: First, Marissa's head explodes. After that joyous occasion, it gets all depressing. Oh well.

Pairing: Major RyanLindsay, SethSummer.

AN: She's dead! DEAD! She can't come back! BWAHAHAHAHA!

God, I hate Marissa.

Anyway, this is the first time I haven't written a story based solely on Seth and/or Summer. Let's see how it goes.

Oh, and I'm still working on Underneath It All, and And So It Goes. I might also do a third companion piece for Touch and Feel. Maybe.

oooooooooooooooooooooo

Marissa Cooper was dead.

It was strange, in all the time Ryan had spent in the less-desirable end of the spectrum, he'd never seen death. Thinking back on it, he'd probably seen everything but.

But not _death._

Not a life, a human, a person, shattering, ending, transforming beyond any hope of repair, before his eyes.

Funny how it took moving to what was possibly the most sheltered community in SoCal to show him the one thing he'd actually been sheltered from.

It was fucking hilarious.

He wanted to remember Marissa the way she had been. He wanted to remember her smile, or her laugh.

But the only picture that came to his mind was an ugly one. A picture of her face spattered with red. Her eyes wide open. Blood still trickling out of the wound, down her cheeks. Dead.

It was his fault. _It was all his fault_.

Jimmy had left her. DJ had broken up with her. And he and Lindsay had decided to date. And Marissa had come to him, but Ryan couldn't take her back. He didn't love her. And he'd told her.

And she'd killed herself three hours later.

And he hadn't saved her. She'd fallen, and he hadn't caught her. He'd been happy, and she'd been in hell.

And she was gone, and it was his fucking fault.

He couldn't stay.

Not after he'd done that to Marissa, he couldn't stay there. Not after he'd seen her body sprawled across his bed.

The gun was still clutched in her hand.

When he walked in that night, he'd been smiling. He'd had a great time with Lindsay. Then he'd seen the blood. He immediately vomited at the sight, then raced blindly into the house, yelling for Sandy and Kirsten.

Yelling for his parents.

He never saw Marissa again.

He never saw _any _of them again.

Well, he stayed for a while. He stayed for Marissa's funeral. He watched Julie. He watched tears wash silently down her cheeks. He watched Kaitlin sob openly. He watched Summer sit between Seth and Zach, staring blankly ahead, sitting by Zach, but leaning toward Seth, finally settling for sliding her hand under his. Ryan didn't think she even realized she was doing it. Zach did.

He watched all three of the women stare at him. Their faces betrayed dark truth. They blamed him.

He watched a lot of things for the last three months that he managed to stay in Newport.

He watched Julie ruthlessly helm the Newport Group with Caleb, hiding herself in work.

He watched Kaitlin slide into a pit of self-destruction that rivaled her sister.

He watched as Summer kept staring blankly. He watched Zach with Summer, he watched as Zach grew more possesive instead of protective, he watched as she became more and more afraid. And he watched as the bruises began to loom on Summer's arms and legs. He watched as Seth grew more and more aware of what was happening, as Seth stared at Summer, afraid for her.

He just watched.

He watched the day Seth had to physically pick her up off of the ground, and drag her away from Zach, as Summer screamed, as her head bled. He watched as she screamed and sobbed into Seth's neck.

Ryan drove them all home after Seth carried her to the backseat. He watched Seth clean the gash in her forehead, his brow furrowed in anger. He watched Summer fall asleep right there in the kitchen. And he watched Seth rock her as if she were a six year-old child.

He understood abuse, pain, loss. He didn't understand love.

He left the very next day.

This was too much.

He said goodbye to Lindsay. She was the only one. She begged him not to leave, sobbed that she loved him, screamed that she'd have every cop in the area on his ass in two hours, and have them bring him home. He kissed her, and left anyway, as she dropped to her knees, and wept. And the ache in his gut intensified. But he kept moving.

She followed him, and pulled at his arm, calling his name, trying to keep him. But he was already gone. She wrapped her arms around his middle, and her tears soaked his shirt in seconds. She whispered that she loved him. He kissed the top of her head, and breathed in the clean, vanilla smell that always hung around Lindsay.

And Ryan thought that maybe he loved her.

He walked away. He didn't look back. But the sound of her crying refused to leave him. The smell of her hair clung to his nostrils. The pain in her eyes was always in his line of vision. The fact that he hadn't said anything made his head ache. But he had to leave.

He brought pictures of Seth, Summer, Sandy, Kirsten. He didn't bring a picture of Lindsay.

He didn't need one.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I kind of want to continue this one. We'll see.


End file.
